Short Path Distillation Plant From Lab scale to pilot scale

Introduction

Continuous processing can offer many advantages to the pharmaceutical and fine chemical industry, where the batch reactor is still the industry standard after more than a century. A vast improvement in sustainability based on the green chemistry principles, an enhanced intrinsic process safety and the possibility to explore entirely new chemical pathways and chemicals are amongst the most important drivers for the current research in this field. This shift in technology obviously requires a vastly different approach both in lab research and in industrialization. In recent years, the scope of chemical research activities at Agfa has expanded more and more from a merely chemical approach to a mixed chemical-technological approach. Among the technologies being investigated, continuous distillation has been shown to be a very promising technique to handle thermally unstable and/or foaming products. Short path evaporation enables us to distill these chemicals in a very efficient continuous way, so thermal instability, reactivity or foaming does not pose a problem. Short path distillation can be done at every scale, from lab to pilot to production. At lab scale the feasibility of the thin film evaporation process can be tested on glass equipment. In the next stage of the upscaling process, the distillation parameters can be fine tuned (vacuum, jacket temperature, rotor speed and feed rate) on the stainless steel pilot installation. These parameters can be easily translated to the settings for a production installation, taking into account the tip speed and surface area.

Feed Advantages of short path distillation plant

• Continuous distillation process • Flexible and easily adaptable to product requirements Hot Oil • Possibility of: Jacket • heated outlet • peristaltic pump • (heated) gear pump • Possibility to take samples • Easily upscalable Vacuum • Can be fully automated Concentrate • Short residence time (Minimal thermal stress and decomposition) Distillate • Low fouling on evaporator wall Basic Principle Cold Finger • Possibility to distill foaming products A short path evaporator combines a thin film evaporator with an internal condenser in a single apparatus. A vacuum is • Mobile modular system (with triclamp connections) applied over the column. The wiping system spreads the feed material onto the heated internal evaporator. After which • Can be operated as stand alone unit, in combination with a flow the vapors are condensed on a condenser located inside the evaporator as “Distillate”. The distance between the heated reactor or connected to a batch reactor surface and the condenser surface is very short. The distillate flows down the tubes of the condenser and leaves the evaporator from the bottom nozzle. The fraction of the film that reaches the bottom of vessel is called “Concentrate”. It is collected at the bottom of the shell.

Specifications VTA VK100-10 Pilot Plant

• 0,1 m² surface area Thermostat group column jacket Cold trap Thermostat group cold trap • Feed rate of 5-10 l/h • Stainless Steel • Roller wiping system & block wiping system available • Min. vacuum pressure: 0,001 mbar • Max. jacket temperature: 300 °C Rotor • Max. viscosity of the residue at operating temperature: 15,000 mPas (cP)

Insulated column

Wiper Systems

Different wiper systems available:

Roller wiping system Oil diffusion pump  Reduced mechanical stress  Lower viscosities Rotary vane pump Block wiping system  High viscosities

10 L SS stirred feed vessel Concentrate Distillate References www.VTA-process.de Agfa’s VK100-10 Pilot Plant

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